EXCLUSIVE | TJ Dillashaw aims to dethrone ‘Mighty Mouse’, actively defend two titles

With his sizzling UFC 217 grudge match with Cody Garbrandt soundly in the rear-view mirror, UFC bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw is now hellbent on a flyweight showdown with iron-fisted division ruler Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson. In his opinion, this champion versus champion showdown is simply too big not to happen.

“I mean that’s the fight that needs to happen. It has to happen,” Dillashaw explained on the latest episode of BJ Penn Radio. “I mean, it’s got fireworks written all over it. I’ve always said I wanna be the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, and that’s where he’s at. I’m setting my goals high. I’m chasing him down, you know? As well as him already denying the fight, and proving to be afraid of the fight. He was making all these other excuses, and then one of his excuses was that I need to be a champion. Well guess what? That’s done. You know what I mean? You have no more excuses. It’s time to get this thing on, and prove who the best is. You know, I can make the weight class very, very well. And I think I’m gonna be very strong, and too much for him, and he knows it. And it’s gonna be very nice for me to be the new best pound-for-pound fighter in the world.”

So, how does TJ Dillashaw plan on dethroning the seemingly unbeatable flyweight king? Well, he’s not giving away too much intel, but he’s got some ideas.

“I’m not gonna give out too much info on him, because I really think this fight’s gonna happen, and he’s a very cerebral fighter, and he’ll be listening. You know, he’ll see what I’m looking for. But ultimately it comes down to that I don’t have the holes in my game that a lot of the guys he’s fought, and you know, the way he’s able to push them for four rounds, and then get ’em tired, and then finish ’em, you know? I can out wrestle him, I can do everything. Like he’s not gonna be able to try to do what he does normally to most of the guys he fights, and that’s gonna be a problem for him.”

If Dillashaw is able to thwart Mighty Mouse, he plans on being an active two-division champion, defending both the bantamweight and flyweight belts as often as he can.

“That’d be perfect,” he said.”I would love to be the guy. I’m a champion that defends his belts. You know what I mean? I’m not gonna be that guy that wins his belt and then doesn’t defend them. I would love to be as active as possible. This is the prime time in my career right now. If I can defend both belts, that would be amazing.”

Do you think TJ Dillashaw is the man to beat “Mighty Mouse”?

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 9/11/2017.